Step-by-step guides
Three things you can run on secret.gift, three short guides. Everything below takes a couple of minutes of real work — no account, no email, no app.
Gift exchange & Secret Santa
One flow, three styles and two draw modes. The STYLE changes the wording everywhere — Secret Santa, St. Nicholas or plain Gift Exchange — while the MODE decides who sees the pairs: SECRET (everyone sees only their own person) or OPEN (the whole list is on screen). Both can be switched right up to the draw; after it, only the style.
1. Create the room
Hit “Start a gift exchange” and fill the short form: group name, your own name, and optionally a budget and a description with the rules.
Pick the style and the draw mode. Nothing here is final — you can change your mind until the moment you draw.
2. Save the two passwords
You land in the group with a highlighted block holding two passwords: the ORGANIZER password (manage the group, run the draw) and your own PARTICIPANT password.
Both are saved on this device — the homepage shows them under “Your groups” — but copy them somewhere safe anyway, and never share the organizer one.
3. Invite with one link
Copy the invite link from the access block and drop it into your chat. People join with a name, get their own password, and appear in the list on the right.
Lost the link? The group code from the same block works on the Join page. People can join until the draw.
4. Wishes, gift list and address
Everyone writes what they would like, and for a remote exchange adds a delivery address. One click turns those wishes into a real gift list with photos and prices, and drops its link into the text.
Privacy is built in: the group sees only ticks that someone filled something in. After the draw, the content goes to exactly one person — the one who drew you.
5. Set the budget and the gift day
Both live in the header as tiles and are visible to everyone. An agreed budget prevents the awkward gap between a keyring and a coffee machine.
The gift day answers the question people ask the organizer most often — add it early and stop repeating yourself in the chat.
6. Run the draw
The sidebar splits people into ready and waiting, so you can nudge the stragglers first. If you are not taking part, tick “Exclude organizer” before you draw.
The draw runs ONCE: the list locks, nobody can draw themselves, and in secret mode even you cannot see the pairs.
7. The reveal and the chat
Everyone opens the group and taps the box: it bursts open with the name, the wishes and the address of their person. In open mode the full “who gives to whom” list appears under it.
After the draw an anonymous chat opens between you and the person you drew — ask about a size or a colour without giving yourself away. Neither side ever learns who is typing.
8. Lost a password?
Check the homepage on the device you used, then the access block inside the group — the password saved on this device is there, behind a reveal.
If both fail, the organizer issues a new one from the group page. It works after the draw too and reveals no pairs.
White Elephant on secret.gift
White Elephant has no pairs: everybody brings one wrapped gift and the fun is in the order of picking and stealing. The site handles the part people argue about — the order — and stays out of the rest. The rules themselves, with the stealing limits and the house variants, live in the guide on our blog.
1. Create the room in White Elephant mode
Create a group as usual and pick the White Elephant mode. The wishlist and the anonymous chat disappear from the page — nobody is buying for a particular person, so there is nothing to ask.
Use the description for the house rules: how many steals, whether a gift can be frozen after three owners, and the budget everyone agreed on.
2. Invite, and agree on the budget
The invite link works the same way. The budget tile matters more here than anywhere else: every gift lands on the same table, and a wild price gap is what ruins the game.
3. Draw the pick order
The draw hands out numbers instead of names. Everyone sees their own number big on screen, and the full order is public — that is the point, the order is meant to be shared.
Number one has the hardest job: they open a present blind, and by the end of the round they usually get to swap it for the best thing on the table.
4. Play
On their turn, a player either unwraps a new gift or steals an unwrapped one. The person who was robbed goes again immediately.
Keep the order page open on the table — arguments about “whose turn” end instantly when the list is on a screen everyone can see.
Create a wishlist
A wishlist is a separate tool and does not need a group: a link you can send to anybody, for a birthday, a wedding, a baby shower or Christmas. Gifts can be reserved quietly, and you are the one person who never sees what has been taken.
1. Create the list
Open Wishlist, put in your name and the occasion, and you are done — the list exists and its link is ready. No account, no email.
You get an edit key at the same time: keep it, it is what lets you open the list for editing on another device.
2. Add gifts
Paste a link from any store and the title, price and picture are pulled from the page automatically. Anything without a link you can add by hand, with a note about size or colour.
Add more than you expect to get. A list of three items is a list of three sold-out items; ten gives people room to choose.
3. Share the link
Send the link to family, a group chat, or paste it into your wishes inside a gift exchange — the person who drew you will see it right where they look.
The page shows the occasion, the date if you set one, and your items with prices, so nobody has to ask what you are into.
4. Let people reserve
A visitor marks an item as reserved or bought, and every other visitor sees it — but you never do. Your own list looks untouched, so the surprise holds and nobody buys the same thing twice.
Reservations are anonymous: the site records that an item is taken, not who took it.